The Whole Health Project: Trauma Aware Facilitation Training

This training is for coaches, yoga teachers, healers, and facilitators who want to better understand trauma and offer trauma-aware support to their students and clients. No therapy background is required; the program is designed for facilitators who want to stay within the bounds of their role while making their sessions safer. Yoga Alliance registered teachers can also use it toward YACEP continuing education.

The training is built around three modules covering the difference between trauma aware, trauma sensitive, and trauma informed work, and what each means in practice. Students explore what trauma actually is, how stress and trauma relate, how different types of trauma show up in clients and students, and how to recognise trauma in themselves. The core sessions are What is Trauma, Stress and Trauma, Trauma Aware Facilitation, Creating Safe Spaces, and Trauma Aware Emotional First Aid. Practical content includes how to minimise the risk of triggering a student, what to do as a basic protocol if a client is triggered in session, and when to refer someone on to a therapist or trauma specialist. The program also offers simple practices that facilitators can use to support their own regulation and healing, as well as offer to their students.

The training is led by Rachel Fearnley and Lucy Foster-Perkins, co-founders of The Whole Health Project, alongside clinical psychologist Lic. Begoña García. Rachel and Lucy bring combined experience as yoga teachers, breath coaches, meditation teachers, somatic coaches, teacher trainers, and retreat facilitators. Begoña is a clinical psychologist from Costa Rica who also works as a breath coach and mindfulness leader and runs mental health-focused retreats.

The program is fully self-paced. It is the recording of the live online delivery, originally taught over three days as three modules. Students get instant access on sign-up and can watch and digest the material in their own time. Questions can be asked at any point in the Trauma Aware Facilitation Training Private Facebook Group, where the facilitators respond within a couple of days.

The training is built around three modules covering the difference between trauma aware, trauma sensitive, and trauma informed work, and what each means in practice. Students explore what trauma actually is, how stress and trauma relate, how different types of trauma show up in clients and students, and how to recognise trauma in themselves. The core sessions are What is Trauma, Stress and Trauma, Trauma Aware Facilitation, Creating Safe Spaces, and Trauma Aware Emotional First Aid. Practical content includes how to minimise the risk of triggering a student, what to do as a basic protocol if a client is triggered in session, and when to refer someone on to a therapist or trauma specialist. The program also offers simple practices that facilitators can use to support their own regulation and healing, as well as offer to their students.